Building a Design Organization
How I built and scaled the design practice behind BlueEye and Hummingbird.
When I joined Paradox, I was the only product designer. Over the following years, I helped build the design organization from the ground up, growing the team to four designers (including myself), defining scalable workflows, and introducing AI into our daily process.
This page is the working system behind the projects: the processes, people, and leadership that turned design into a strategic partner across the company.
One designer, two products, an entire ecosystem to shape.
Defined what great looks like, then went looking for it.
Coverage across mobile, desktop, web, and hardware surfaces.
Weekly critique, growth plans, and a culture of honest feedback.
One language for quality decisions across every product.
Versioning, reviews, and handoffs that survive real deadlines.
Claude joined the daily workflow, from research to handoff.
"Building a team was never only about hiring. It meant creating a culture of quality, mentoring designers, defining standards, and making sure the team evolved together with the company's products and business goals."
Every feature moved through one continuous lifecycle: from business goal to public release, and straight into the next iteration. It runs as a loop.

Design work was managed through structured sprint planning, while Circleback documented meetings, tracked decisions, and followed action items with Product, R&D, management, distributors, and installers.
Managed multiple design systems simultaneously across products and platforms: consistency across the ecosystem, freedom for each experience to evolve.
Every feature moved through structured versions before development. Each iteration included reviews, stakeholder feedback, refinement, approval, and developer handoff.

Design ownership continued after development. Every implemented feature was reviewed for design quality, interaction accuracy, consistency, and alignment with the approved version before release.

Integrated Claude into the daily design workflow: research, documentation, design thinking, content creation, technical writing, and collaboration with engineering. Product decisions stayed human-driven.
Planned and prioritized work across multiple products: balancing business priorities, engineering capacity, design resources, and release schedules.

Daily work with Product Managers, R&D leaders, developers, QA, management, distributors, installers, and marketing to align product decisions throughout development.
Managed multiple design systems simultaneously across products and platforms: consistency across the ecosystem, freedom for each experience to evolve.

Every feature moved through structured versions before development. Each iteration included reviews, stakeholder feedback, refinement, approval, and developer handoff.
Design ownership continued after development. Every implemented feature was reviewed for design quality, interaction accuracy, consistency, and alignment with the approved version before release.

Integrated Claude into the daily design workflow: research, documentation, design thinking, content creation, technical writing, and collaboration with engineering. Product decisions stayed human-driven.
Planned and prioritized work across multiple products: balancing business priorities, engineering capacity, design resources, and release schedules.

Daily work with Product Managers, R&D leaders, developers, QA, management, distributors, installers, and marketing to align product decisions throughout development.
Managed multiple design systems simultaneously across products and platforms: consistency across the ecosystem, freedom for each experience to evolve.
Every feature moved through structured versions before development: reviews, stakeholder feedback, refinement, approval, and developer handoff.

Design ownership continued after development. Every implemented feature was reviewed for design quality, interaction accuracy, consistency, and alignment with the approved version before release.

Integrated Claude into the daily design workflow: research, documentation, design thinking, and collaboration with engineering. Product decisions stayed human-driven.
Planned and prioritized work across multiple products: balancing business priorities, engineering capacity, design resources, and release schedules.

Daily work with Product Managers, R&D leaders, developers, QA, management, distributors, installers, and marketing to align product decisions throughout development.
"Design became much more than a product function. It became a shared language connecting business goals, engineering constraints, customer feedback, and product strategy."
Every major release was validated with international distributors and professional installers before public launch.
Instead of relying only on internal assumptions, we collected real-world feedback during the global beta program, using insights from installers and distributors to refine workflows, improve usability, and prioritize future iterations.
Whenever design could improve the company, I contributed beyond the product itself: branding initiatives, marketing assets, presentation design, hardware aesthetics, and PCB visual direction. The goal was always to strengthen the whole product ecosystem, beyond the interface.
I never led by managing designers. I built the people, processes, and systems that let good products ship consistently.